Smith, James G.
Army Staff sergeant

James G. Smith, age 25, from Texas, Taylor county.

Service era: World War II

Date of death: Tuesday, June 9, 1942
Death details: Following the Allied surrender on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, the Japanese began the forcible transfer of American and Filipino prisoners of war to various prison camps in central Luzon, at the northern end of the Philippines. The largest of these camps was the notorious Cabanatuan Prison Camp. At its peak, Cabanatuan held approximately 8,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war that were captured during and after the Fall of Bataan. Camp overcrowding worsened with the arrival of Allied prisoners who had surrendered from Corregidor on May 6, 1942. Conditions at the camp were poor, with food and water extremely limited, leading to widespread malnutrition and outbreaks of malaria and dysentery. By the time the camp was liberated in early 1945, approximately 2,800 Americans had died at Cabanatuan. Prisoners were forced to bury the dead in makeshift communal graves, often completed without records or markers. As a result, identifying and recovering remains interred at Cabanatuan was difficult in the years after the war. Staff Sergeant James G. Smith entered the U.S. Army from Texas and was a member of Battery D, 200th Coast Artillery Regiment. He was taken as a prisoner of war by the Japanese following the U.S. surrender in the Philippines and held at the Cabanatuan prisoner of war camp. SSG Smith died of dysentery at Cabanatuan on June 9, 1942. His remains have not been located or identified in investigations of Cabanatuan after the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Staff Sergeant Smith is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency